the fundamental practice
2005
2 video displays plus 1 projector If you are setting up 'regroup, re-order, restore' (R-R-R)1 APU trolley 5 speakers (1 for the trolley, the rest elsewhere) 5 sets of speaker cables 1 winch 1 fancy car battery to drive the winch 1 set (ie. 2 speaker cables) of winch control cables 1 double relay to control the winch (sits on the trolley) Two audio amplifiers 2 computers 2 8-port relay cards, one for each computer 2 wired head connectors to connect each relay card to the winch and to the speakers through the amplifier. 2 video displays plus 1 projector Basically, two computers are used to 'spread the load' of sound and speech synthesis.
| Setting up 'the fundamental practice'; |
| 5 APUs |
| 5 speakers |
| 5 sets of speaker cables able to reach from the computer table to the APUs |
| 5 winches |
| 5 fancy car batteries to drive the winch |
| 5 sets (each set=2 speaker cables) of winch control wires able to reach from the computer table to the APUs |
| 5 double relays to control the winches (sit in the APUs) |
| Two audio amplifiers |
| 2 computers |
| 2 8-port relay cards, one for each computer |
| 2 wired head connectors to connect each relay card to the winches and to the speakers through the amplifier |
| Standard Windows computers running XP (or Windows 7) 32-bit |
| The computers are connected via a network and router |
| Each computer has installed: Windows Media Player, SAPI-4 speech synthesis engine with a range of voices |
| Each computer has an 8-port relay card (mentioned above) |
| There are 5 conceptual APUs (all of which are real in FP), 2 are on one computer, 3 on the other |
| Each APU has a separate 'Budd' program running on one of the computers |
| Hence there are 2 Budds running on one computer, and 3 on the other. |
| Each Budd runs a script which controls the winch on its APU (if real) and the audio |
| Each Budd can communicate with the others (whatever computer they are on) via the network |
| Only one Budd (out of the 5) has control at any time, mostly |
| The Budd in control executes a short (eg. 30 secs to 2 mins) speech/music/winch-movement section |
| Once the Budd in control has finished it passes control to another picked at random |
| R-R-R also uses a google earth setup (already exhibited by the AAG) |
| While the Budds/APUs are running, the person looking after the system can run another Budd and use it to check out the system (with a variety of pre-written scripts) and shut the system down for the night etc. If the internet is connected, and the router has been sorted successfully, the extra Budd can be run on a remote computer and control the system over the internet. |
| The software for the system, including the Budd program, scripts, etc, would take up about 50 Mb max, the audio would be about 1-2Gb. |